More COVID deaths in Tri-Cities area. September total already 3 times those in July

Eleven more Tri-Cities area residents have died of complications of COVID-19, the youngest a woman in her 40s, the Benton Franklin Health District announced Friday.

They bring the total deaths announced so far this month to 30. That’s up from 23 deaths in August and 10 in July.

Verified COVID-19 deaths are reported once a week by the health district based in the Tri-Cities.

The high number of deaths reflect the surge in new cases since the more infectious delta variant of the coronavirus has become common and now accounts for nearly all cases in Benton and Franklin counties.

Since the start of the pandemic 403 Tri-Cities area residents have died of COVID-19, including 271 in Benton County and 132 in Franklin County.

The deaths announced Friday included eight Benton County residents — a woman in her 40s, a man in his 50s, a woman and two men in their 60s, two men in their 70s and a woman in her 80s.

In Franklin County, a woman in her 70s and two men in their 80s died.

Local public health officials verify that the deaths are due to COVID complications by checking for a positive test result and that a coronavirus infection was named as a primary cause of death on the death certificate.

It can take several weeks for the district to receive and reconcile death information for residents due to the reporting processes of medical facilities and coroners’ offices and the process of issuing and releasing death certificates.

In all, of Washington state, 6,850 deaths due to the coronavirus have been reported since the start of the pandemic, including 207 deaths announced in the past week, up from 172 announced the previous week.

Of the people who have died statewide, 220 were known to be vaccinated against COVID, according to the latest state report issued Sept. 8 on vaccination breakthrough cases.

At least 74 of them were residents of long-term care facilities.

Just one death of a fully vaccinated person is known in the Tri-Cities, according to county data available through July.

This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 12:51 PM.